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How we give life to our Principles of Motion at Dailymotion
We wanted our employees to feel valued, to live in an inspiring work environment and to be empowered so that we can all rise as a team. That’s why we created our “Principles of Motion”- four Culture values at the very heart of Dailymotion’s working philosophy. Here’s how we embody these simple — but essential — principles daily.
In 2018, we organized a summit with 40 employees from different teams across Dailymotion. Two days of working and having fun together with a common goal: define the core values that make up our culture, which we would eventually call our “Principles of Motion”. In other words: we built the four pillars of what working at Dailymotion really means to us.
Our Principles of Motion
1. Build Community
We build a community where employees feel valued
Strong relationships and a sense of belonging are what make a company human and keep it functioning when the going gets tough. But like all relationships, comradeship requires work and investment and should never be taken for granted. This unity needs to be deep-rooted, nurtured, and exist across different teams and different locations. When a community is strong and people have a meaningful relationship, they start trusting each other.
As an example, we celebrate “Dailyversaries” to acknowledge the great contributions that people make to the company and to make them feel they belong by offering them a gift. Another exemple is our “Team Party Challenge”: every team has a budget to organise a small party at the office and at the end of the year, employees vote for the best party.
2. Create trust
We believe trust creates an inspiring work environment
Trust is something that is earned, and to create trust, we as a company (and also each of us as individuals) must be as transparent as we possibly can. It’s about giving people the right context, explaining why we do things and the way we do things. It also means honoring your word, not passing on information out that could be detrimental to the company, assuming that people, in general, make the right decisions, etc. If you believe that a decision is not the right one, or that you lack context, then say so. Be respectful, be constructive but voice your opinions. Because trust is also about challenging, asking the tough questions and holding people accountable. Trust is not being afraid to speak up if something is not right.
Regular “All Hands” (global quarterly gatherings), lunches with our CEO, monthly video newsletters are only a few of the initiatives we put in place to make sure teams hear from the top management and have a place to ask their questions. Trust is present on a daily basis for example with a fully flexible remote work policy: no need to give explanation, just take the space you need to do your job in the best conditions.
3. Take action
We empower people to take action
Here at Dailymotion, we believe in supporting our teammate’s and employee’s initiatives. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but we’ll always celebrate the courage for trying. Dailymotion employees are “Doers”. Big changes come from small ideas, so it’s really about taking action and bringing those ideas to come to life. The important thing is not the result, but rather what you learned from it. Make the change you want to see, be resourceful, don’t let your motivation deflate when you meet obstacles along the way. Go the extra mile, push boundaries and challenge the status quo. That’s what’s our people do. And they don’t necessarily have to do it alone, sometimes actions are best taken together.
People wanted to receive personal postal deliveries at the office but we couldn’t handle the workload, so some of the employees invented a smart system on Slack to auto-manage deliveries and make sure every employee get their packages. #amazonwho?
4. Champion each other
We champion each individual so that we can rise as a team
To grow as individuals and to help others grow too is the basis of all positive human organizations. Everyone at Dailymotion is here for a reason, but it’s not about doing your tasks in your corner. We need to make sure we help others succeed in what they undertake. Everyone is linked together from every team and every office in a unique and virtuous business loop. To champion one person is to champion a whole chain of people. It’s a virtuous cycle of mutual help and it works. If we allow everyone to excel in what they do, we excel as a company. We all acknowledge that it’s everyone’s responsibility to do their part and have the right mindset. No one benefits from a company that works in silos or that doesn’t communicate as it should.
“FYI” (Feed Your Ideas) is the name of our bi-weekly sharing sessions where everyone can talk about their projects and share their expertise, allowing us all to learn from each other, over some snacks.
How we defined these values together
The process of how we defined our values is the ultimate application of them. We had a very bottom-up approach; we gathered people from different teams, levels of seniority, offices and basically asked ourselves: what do we all have in common?
It took us 48-intense-but-absolutely-fun hours and a few liters of coffee to define how we wanted to work together as a company and how, on a daily basis, we would embed our newly-defined Principles of Motion. We didn’t want to just write down nice-sounding words, so described behaviors and actions… that would represent these values at best. What better way to embody our principles than… by taking action? Participants came up with several initiatives that they put in place after the workshop for everyone in the company.
The Principles of Motion are our guidelines to drive not only our HR roadmap but also to take business and corporate decisions. For us, making decisions with our people is key. When we had to reshuffle our office space, we didn’t call an agency, we called our employees: they spent one day discussing and playing with the building plans to come up with a new seating plan, where to put new meeting rooms and what decorations to put up.
As you can imagine, it’s not easy to get more than 300 people from 5 continents to adopt the same Culture. That’s why we don’t rely on our Principles of Motion as if they were set in stone. On the contrary, we like to think that our Culture is continually evolving, always fed by new people joining our team and putting in place new initiatives.
If you want to join the adventure and be part of Dailymotion’s journey, visit Dailymotion Jobs
